Flipping your Lid & Widening your Window of Tolerance
MEGAN DAVIES, MA, Registered Clinical Counsellor - VITALITY COLLECTIVE VANCOUVER THERAPIST
In a previous blog post, I spoke briefly about what the window of tolerance was and explained how the window of tolerance is different for everyone. In this blog post, I will go into more detail as to the effect trauma has on the body, the brain, and ways in which you can widen your window of tolerance.
Understanding your window of tolerance…
is one of the first steps toward living a life where you feel safe, capable, and in control of your emotions.
Traumatic events and adverse childhood experiences impact our ability to self-soothe and self-regulate. In other words, you are no longer able to comfort yourself and cope with your emotions. Trauma refers to experiences or events that are overwhelming. These events are more than just stressful; they are shocking, terrifying, and can result in strong feelings of shame, fear, helplessness and hopelessness. These traumatic experiences affect your ability to cope. When there is something potentially threatening in your environment, your sympathetic nervous system is activated and your body prepares you for survival. Your body is preparing to fight or flight.
When trauma becomes chronic, your bodies remain in a constant state of alertness in order to be ready for threats. This constant activation can also worsen a person’s ability to tell the difference between threatening stimuli and harmless stimuli. Fear becomes the automatic response to both threatening and non-threatening stimuli. When you have experienced trauma, you have unmet attachment needs or just one too many irritations and you move out of our window of tolerance. Your senses are on alert and your experiences are intensified causing you to flip your lid.
Flipping Your Lid
Flipping your lid is a term coined by Dr. Dan Siegel, which explains how the brain works and reacts to traumatic experiences and events using the hand model. The model can help you visualize the brain and help you understand what is happening inside your brain and body. In this model, the three brain areas (the brain stem, the amygdala, and the prefrontal cortex) correspond to three areas of your hand. Think of your wrist as your brain stem, it’s responsible for basic things like breathing and keeping your heart pumping. Your thumb, tucked in, sits in the middle, just like the amygdala is the center of a brain. The amygdala is responsible for sensing danger and sending danger signals to our brain and our body. Your fingers are your pre-frontal cortex, the part of the brain that helps us manage emotions and make more complex decisions.
Flipping the lid occurs when your amygdala starts sounding the alarms, putting pressure on your thumb and the fight or flight response is activated, pushing open your pre-frontal cortex fingers. Remember, the cortex is where your thinking happens, so when you flip your lid, your thinking goes out the window. When this happens, you lose your balance and reasoning and react in extreme ways as a result of your emotions. This is an unintentional reaction, you are not choosing to react this way, your threat response has been activated, and you’re trying to survive. When you are outside your window of tolerance, you are flipping your lid, lets now talk about ways in which you can expand your window of tolerance.
The first step is getting to know your window of tolerance. Once there you can begin to understand your own emotions and reactions that come during times of stress. Then it is easier to become aware when you are being triggered and leaving your comfort zone.
For each of the three states, (hyperarousal, optimal arousal, and hypo arousal) begin to investigate:
Any bodily sensations you might feel which are associated with each of the states.
Any emotions or feelings that come up for you when you are within each of the states
Any behaviours you engage in when you are within each of the states
Things you enjoy doing which keep you in your window of tolerance or things that have been helpful to get you back to your window of tolerance.
By becoming aware of these sensations, emotions and reactions; you can use this as a road map to create a better understanding of what you are feeling, and what has potentially pushed you out of your window of tolerance.
Becoming more in tune with your body. Spend time noticing the sensations in your body that you have been ignoring for years. Your body sends you clues that are you are moving outside your window of tolerance, learn to listen to it.
Build your tolerance for discomfort. Instead of turning away from discomfort, turn towards it. By turning towards the discomfort and dysregulating sensations, you are showing yourself, that you’re not afraid of these feelings.
Build your resources through self-compassion, shifting your view from threat to care. You are doing your best, with the tools you have.
Widening your window of tolerance takes patience and practice. Of course, when you feel your body moving into fight or flight, the last thing you want to do is sit in that discomfort and listen to what your body is saying, it’s scary and it’s going against what your body is telling you to do. When you sit in that scary feeling, you’re not only getting to know what your body is telling you, but you’re inadvertently telling your body that you are in control, and you are not afraid.